


discordia

by vivific (V_fics)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Butterfly Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Dark Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Episode: s03 Caméléon | Chameleon, Gen, Heroes to Villains, Not Adrien Agreste Friendly, Spitefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-09 20:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18645976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_fics/pseuds/vivific
Summary: Wherein everyone is canon compliant in Chameleon, and Marinette decides she's had enough.The not-sequel fic to misericordia, now with more spite.





	discordia

**Author's Note:**

> I would recommend reading misericordia first, there are some lore elements you'll miss otherwise, but this is a separate take from it so the gist is that the Ladybug has power over the Butterfly, so when Marinette is akumatised, Hawk Moth actually doesn't have any control over her and she generally wrecks his shit.
> 
> I make references to the fact that French has a formal/informal distinction. For the uninitiated, there are two "you" pronouns in French, "tu/toi/te" is informal/familiar and used amongst peers and friends and family. There's also "vous/votre" which used professionally, to speak to elders, etc. Marinette will switch to the formal at one point in fic, namely with Lila and Adrien, to show that she's intentionally distancing herself from them.
> 
> This fic is... kind of a challenge for myself? To express events through implication rather than explicit dialogue. I'm not sure if I totally nailed it, but... there will be an explanation at the end in case anything does seem confusing.
> 
> Thanks to paladin-of-fandoms and the MAS for proofreading!

“Nowhere to run now, Ladybug!”

The soles of their feet clanged on the bars of the Tower, and Ladybug turned to scoff at the fake Chat Noir.

“That’s because I don’t intend to,” she said easily, flinging her yoyo into air, “Lucky Charm!”

The magical ladybugs burst from her yoyo and spiralled into the air, coalescing into—

Ladybug squinted at the delivered object. It was a cartoonishly oversized pill with a smiley face on one end. She pulled it apart, and the inside revealed a nib that would extend into a proper pen. She knew what it was, she had one just like it in her pencil case.

“A novelty pen?” she asked herself.

“Seriously? You’re going to defeat me with _that_?” Chat Noir’s voice rose in mockery.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge,” Ladybug chided, hanging the Charm on her waist.

“And I wouldn’t be so confident!”

Chat Noir lunged at her. She dodged and leapt off the beams to the platform. The baton swung, but Ladybug had fought Chat Noir and his clones enough times to parry him in her sleep. The yoyo latched onto the other weapon and jerked it out the fake’s hand. She snapped it over her knee, but it only split into two.

“Failed again!”

The fake charged at her. Ladybug ducked and tossed the batons over his shoulder, but he didn’t take the bait and landed a kick to her chest. In the split second it took her to recover from the recoil, the fake had thrown his weight onto her and tackled her to the ground.

Chat Noir pinning her to the ground with one hand and an active Cataclysm in the other felt awfully familiar. The kisser and kissee being reversed this time was not helping matters.

Ladybug gritted her teeth and turned her head away. Through the railing, the platform beneath them lead to a booth selling seafood and…

She slammed the Cataclysm into the floor beside her head. Chat Noir leapt back, but it was too late.

Even if the magic saved her bones from breaking, falling from a height still hurt. She had landed directly onto the counter, but Chat Noir had missed his landing. When the akuma finally recovered and stood, he leapt onto her prone form, and—kissed a clam shell.

Ladybug sat up, grinning cheerfully as the akuma stumbled backed and the magic did its work. Chat Noir vanished.

She picked up the superhero-turned-clamshell and held it to her ear.

“Sorry, what were you saying about confidence, again? I can’t hear you.”

A moment later, the real Chat Noir landed beside her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No thanks to your latest copycat,” she said, waving the clamshell.

Chat Noir gave a laugh, and Ladybug turned to the shocked booth employee cowering in the corner.

“Do you mind?”

“O-Of course not, Ladybug!”

Ladybug’s satisfied smile turned into a frown as she retrieved her yoyo and the Lucky Charm while the woman set on literally cracking open the akuma. She frowned at the pen.

“You didn’t use your Lucky Charm?”

“Nope,” she said, peering at it. She uncapped it and extended the pen. Yeah, it was exactly like the one she had in her pencil case. “Guess we really did get lucky this time.”

“Here you go, mademoiselle,” the employee said, presenting them with a darkened pearl.

“Thank you you very much,” Ladybug picked it up between her fingers, “it’s time to see who you really are.”

“Oh, it’s an old acquaintance,” Chat Noir said easily. “I think there’s some real symbolism going on with her latest akumatisation.”

Ladybug frowned at the akumatised object. This akuma had been meant for Marinette. It had found another victim so quickly Marinette hadn’t even gotten the chance to transform and capture it first. Who could it have found so soon—

“Oh, don’t tell me.”

She cupped the pearl in her palm and punched it with her free hand. A familiar black butterfly escaped and Ladybug reached for her yoyo.

“Bye-bye little butterfly,” she waved off the creature into the sky.

Her fingers seized the unused Lucky Charm and her smile faltered for a moment, before she finally tossed it into the air and it exploded in an array of pink magic.

Her smile settled into a deeply unimpressed frown as the magical butterflies swarmed the clam and dispersed to reveal one Lila Rossi.

“I see,” she said, her words a lot more calm than she felt. “Cool.”

“Ladybug, I…” Lila looked around. “What happened to me?”

“You were akumatised by Hawk Moth,” Chat Noir said, “but it’s all right now.”

“I gotta run, I’m gonna transform back.” Ladybug said quickly, turning away.

“Ladybug, wait!”

A hand seized her wrist, and Ladybug avoided the urge to slap it away.

“I’m… I’m really grateful you saved me, even after everything I did to you. You really are kind, Ladybug. I owe you.”

In her peripheral, Chat Noir was beaming. Ladybug took a deep breath, then turned around. Lila looked pitiful, and her hand fell to her side.

“My job is to keep Paris safe,” Ladybug said politely. “And I’m not in the habit of blaming people for their actions while akumatised. You’re welcome. I hope Hawk Moth doesn’t make you a regular victim. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

She leapt off the roof before Lila or Chat Noir could grab her again.

Chat Noir turned to Lila. The girl seemed dismayed.

“You know, Lila, you don’t have to make yourself into something you’re not. People will like you just fine for who you really are.”

The girl pushed herself off the counter and took his hands.

“You’re really sweet too, Chat Noir,” she said with a soft smile. “Thank you.”

“Oh, uh… You’re welcome, too, I guess.” His hand came up to brush at his hair.

Lila’s smile twitched.

 

Marinette stared at the novelty pen. The Lucky Charm had been, for once, completely useless in a fight. Even the one in Animan had served its own purpose after they’d trapped the akuma.

She pulled apart the blue-and-white cartoon capsule and pulled it out into a graspable shape. Her mother had gotten it on a trip back to her family in China. Marinette had found it cute but hard to really use, and the very specific and limited ink cartridge meant she didn’t want to use it up anyway.

Was it signifying something beyond the akuma battle? It hadn’t been a message to go to Fu and grab another Miraculous. She frowned at it a bit more, then pocketed it. She could ask Fu about it later.

She closed her locker and left for the courtyard. The course block immediately after lunch had been cancelled because of the attack, but everyone still had classes to attend. Francoise Dupont was very used to them.  Marinette frowned again as she approached the staircase to the second floor.

Lila was sitting on one of the benches, surrounded by their classmates. Even from a distance, their voices carried, and Marinette could hear Max asking about the effect of Lila’s tinnitus atop the Eiffel Tower.

“No, Ladybug is such a good friend, she knows me so well she brought me an earplug for my right ear before coming to save me!”

Marinette gritted her teeth and turned fully towards the group. Hadn’t Lila said her tinnitus was in her left ear this morning?

God, the worst part about everyone falling for Lila’s lies was that her lies had even more holes in them than Swiss cheese!

There were many other bad parts about her classmates falling for her lies, like the fact that they had completely refused to listen to Marinette when she asked for a doctor’s note, and Alya had try to suggest Marinette was just jealous when she threatened to call Jagged Stone himself, but Lila wasn’t even a good liar.

Marinette bit her lip as Alya leaned in to ask Lila about how Ladybug saved her.

Was she really so incredible to everyone, just based on hearsay? Her friends had seen her design things for Jagged Stone, be handpicked by Clara Nightingale, win that Gabriel contest and have Audrey Bourgeois praise her work and offer to bring her to New York! And they hadn’t seemed half as supportive or interested in Marinette as they were in Lila.

She shook her head. No, her friends liked her for who she _was_ , not what she accomplished. They liked her even before she did all those things! They even threw a picnic for her and thanked her for everything she’d done for them and Adrien had called her their everyday Ladybug and—

“You know, Alya, I really keep forgetting to ask Ladybug about getting an interview with you, you’re such a talented reporter! Ladybug should be the one asking _you_ rather than the other way around.”

Alya was practically swooning over the prospect, and Marinette’s jaw clenched. She sat down on the steps and pulled out her backpack, pretending to search for something.

A terrible realisation came to mind.

Had her friends only liked her because she was useful to them?

No, of course not! How could she have so little faith in her _friends_? They liked her long before she was an accomplished designer and everything.

… Did they?

Marinette pulled out her phone and began swiping through the calendar.

She only knew Nino, Sabrina, and Chloe from their previous college. The rest had been new students from other colleges in the area. Marinette had gained a fast reputation for being the artist in the class, besides Nathaniel, and it had been Alya who’d suggested she make the banner for Kim and Alix’s race.

But she was their class president, they had all voted for her because they really wanted her.

And yet she had to convince them all away from Chloe’s bribery.

Things had changed! Everyone had changed! Even Chloe had changed, a little bit.

Yet here they were, lavishing praise and attention and love onto this girl they barely met, giving Marinette disgusted looks when she dared question Lila’s story of how she got her tinnitus.

She wasn’t doing good things for the praise or the recognition. She did it because it was what was right. She protected Paris as Ladybug because she hated nothing more than the bystanders who had let her be bullied all the years prior. Ladybug didn’t ask for a statue or a parade or gifts for doing the right thing with the power she had.

So why did her chest hurt so much? Why was she so upset? Because Lila was undeserving of that praise?

Marinette lifted her head. Her peers were still talking to Lila. Her lips thinned into a bitter line.

She knew the truth, she knew Lila was fooling all of them, and if she turned a blind eye to it, then she was complicit. If they believed some random girl they barely knew over the girl they’d known since the start of the school year, then that was on them.

She would not stand by and watch.

Her feet had barely left the stairs, when Adrien slid into view, turning around and stepping between Marinette and the group. He’d been watching, too, apparently, just out of of her sight. Marinette blinked at the look in his eyes.

“Are you going to tell everyone?” he asked softly, a bit too close for her comfort.

Marinette took a step back and wobbled, grabbing onto the railing to avoid tripping over the bottom of the steps. She stared at him. This felt familiar.

“Of course,” she said, “Lila is a—”

“—a liar, I know,” Adrien finished.

Her jaw clenched again and she knew her eyes were wide. Damn it, of course Adrien knew. He’d seen Ladybug call Lila out and—

“You didn’t tell anyone?” she whispered harshly.

She wanted to step back onto the stairs so their eyes would be level, since Adrien wasn’t taking the cue to back out of her personal space, but she settled for stepping to the side to put some distance between them.

“Look, Lila already got akumatised today over something she’s not telling us,” Adrien’s eyes were soft. “If you expose her, she’ll just be miserable and get hurt and  akumatised again. Making a bad guy suffer has never turned them into a good guy.”

Yes, this _was_ familiar.

Marinette turned away and took a breath. Her face was flushing warm and it wasn’t out of embarrassment from talking to Adrien. She turned back. Adrien stared at her pleadingly.

“So you’re just going to stand by and let her lie?” she hissed, looking up at him. “Let her continue manipulating everyone for their attention, taking praise for things she didn’t do, making promises you know she can’t keep?!”

Despite the anger in her words, she couldn’t raise her voice more than a furious whisper.

“Lila’s a good person,” Adrien said softly. “I mean, think about it from her perspective, her mother’s always travelling, she probably doesn’t get to stay long in one place at a time. I think she just doesn’t know how to make friends properly, but if we’re nice to her, she’ll—”

“Oh my— Oh my god,” she covered her face with her hands and turned away to the staircase, her back to the group. “Oh my god, you’re really serious.”

“Yeah, I am,” Adrien said, completely clueless to her meaning. “Really Marinette, when Ladybug called Lila out, she got her akumatised into Volpina. I was there. I don’t know what happened again today, but something happened for Lila to get upset enough to be akumatised a second time, even though she seemed really happy today. I don’t think she’s as bad as she seems, she just wants friends.”

Marinette shook her head, dragging her hands to her sides and clenching them into fists. He was serious, he was completely, totally serious.

“And, you know…”

A hand set on her shoulder, and Adrien leaned in closely.

“If you and I both know the truth… Does it really matter?”

She turned her head. Adrien was smiling, like they were sharing some sort of secret. His hand squeezed her shoulder.

Adrien, sweet, kind, _perfect_ Adrien.

He was kind all right. Kind enough to value the feelings of a random girl over any of his friends.

Marinette stared back to the stairs and took deep breaths.

“Thank you for your input, I hadn’t considered it that way,” she said curtly, deliberately referring to him in the formal ‘vous’. “Now here’s mine: stop touching me, please.”

His hand jerked back, and Marinette stormed off, pointedly crossing the courtyard for the girls’ washroom instead of towards Lila and her new friends.

It was empty, thank god, and Marinette stared into the mirror as she finally registered everything that had happened.

“He’s an idiot!”

She stamped her feet on the ground, glaring into the sink.

“He’s a sheltered, naive, clueless idiot and I can’t _believe_ I ever fell for him!”

Tikki zipped out of her jacket, but Marinette would not be stopped.

“I thought he’d defended Chloe because they were childhood friends, but nope! He’s just a fucking idiot!”

Warm tears ran down her cheeks, and Marinette didn’t even bother to wipe at them, digging her hands into the edges of the sink counter. It had been a very long time since she’d given herself the freedom of crying.

A very long time, since someone had taken that freedom from her.

“And I’m so stupid,” she shook her head, a laugh bubbling to her lips. “Of course, he’s not perfect, but I thought he was better than _this_.”

“Maybe if you explain to him—”

“I don’t want to,” snapped Marinette, staring at the blurry pink shape. “I don’t want to, okay? I am so _tired_ of being the one who has to teach other people how to be kind! Why is it always me?!”

“Marinette, you remember what Mlle Bustier said—you need to be a role model.”

“Well I don’t _want_ to be anymore, Tikki! If being a ‘role model’ means I always have to put aside my own feelings because someone’s gonna be upset that I’m angry at them for being a terrible person, then I **quit**!”

She slammed the palm of her hand against the mirror.

For a few seconds, the only thing she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her head, and her own sobbing breaths.

Marinette pulled away from the sink and wiped at her eyes. She turned and grabbed paper towels, then wiped the abrasive tissues over her eyes.

This was familiar, too.

Tikki was at a loss for words, as Marinette leaned against the wall beside the paper towel dispenser, and pressed the cold brick against her cheek. She breathed slowly, and closed her eyes, counting her breaths.

It would be okay. She would be okay. Just taking a quick cry and getting out her frustration and then she would apologise to Tikki and figure out what to do. Things would be okay so long as she kept on breathing.

“Marinette!”

Her eyes flew open, in time for Tikki to zip into her jacket and for the washroom door to open.

“Oh, Marinette, are you crying again?”

Lila’s voice dripped with a dramatic concern, and Marinette straightened herself off the wall. She tossed the tissues into the trash and shoved her hands into her pockets.

Her fingers hit the novelty pen, and Marinette squeezed it in her palm.

“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” she said curtly. Lila wasn’t fazed by Marinette referring to her in the formal pronoun.

“I saw you talking with Adrien just now,” Lila said casually, stepping towards her. Marinette couldn’t budge away from the wall. “Judging by your expression, I guess you couldn’t convince him, huh?”

“Leave me alone,” Marinette said, as Lila cornered her in. “I don’t know what you see in a guy like him, anyway.”

“Wow, that’s a change,” Lila grinned. “Did he break your heart, Marinette?”

“You don’t have the right to address me like that,” Marinette’s lips thinned, emphasising the formality.

“I’ll call you whatever I want, Marinette,” Lila disagreed. “It’s not yet the end of the school day, but if I were you, I’d really think about what I told you earlier. If you back off, I might just let you keep your friends. I’m not sure about Alya, I mean, she’s _such_ a good friend to me, but she’ll probably still remember you exist.”

Lila’s laugh rang through the empty room, and Marinette felt a burning behind her eyes again. She resisted the desire to shut her eyes and curl up into a ball, to physically comfort herself if no one else would.

You can have them, she wanted to tell Lila. You can have anyone who is dumb enough to believe you, and shallow enough to pick you over me.

How cruel of her to think such things. How could she leave Alya and Nino and the rest of her class to Lila’s manipulations? How dare Marinette stand by and refuse to act?

“Leave me alone,” she repeated again.

Lila giggled. Her blurry figure took footsteps back.

“You know, most people look ugly when they cry. I gotta say, you’re almost cute, like a sad little puppy.”

“Get **out**!”

With a parting laugh, Lila opened the washroom door--and screamed.

Marinette pulled her hands from her pockets and wiped at the tears. The door slammed, and Lila was yelling something on the other side. She stepped away from the wall, but as her vision cleared, she stepped back.

Hawk Moth was very busy today, it seemed.

Marinette stared at the akuma as it fluttered, tauntingly slowly, towards her. She couldn’t think positively, and she didn’t want to either. Her hand squeezed around the novelty pen, and she looked away from the akuma to stare at it.

Of course. So that was what the Lucky Charm was telling her this entire time.

She sunk down onto her knees, and held the pen in her open hands.

 

The students in the courtyard were very quick to take cover away from the girls’ restroom, after Lila screamed bloody murder about Marinette being akumatised. They were Francoise Dupont, after all, and they had a _lot_ of akumatisations. It was as routine as a fire drill, if more nervewracking.

As Adrien ducked into an empty classroom, he expected Plagg to make some sort of nonchalant comment about how Marinette would be the only akumatised victim with a sense of fashion or something, but instead the kwami didn’t say a word and zipped right into the ring.

Chat Noir kicked the washroom door open, just in time to see Marinette, standing very still by the washroom wall, cradling something dark in her hands. He straightened. She looked normal, her head bowed and her bangs blocking her eyes. There was no glow of a butterfly mask on her face.

“Marinette?” he asked cautiously, taking a few steps towards her.

“Leave me alone,” the girl whispered hollowly. “I don’t want your help.”

“I know,” he said, halting a metre away from her. “Not a lot of akumatised people do, but you gotta try, right?”

“I told you,” her head lifted, and empty eyes stared into Chat’s soul, “to leave me **alone**!”

Her hand moved suddenly, and Chat Noir jumped back, his baton coming up to defend him, before the motion finally registered.

Marinette crushed the object in her hand against the floor. Then, she slumped forwards, chest heaving, and a black butterfly pried itself out between her fingers, and made for the ceiling.

It took Chat Noir a bit longer than he dared admit to react. Marinette's head rose, her eyes blue and filled with tears.

“Go. I'm fine,” she wheezed, digging her hands into the floor.

Chat Noir pulled the door open and followed the akuma.

 

“What was that, Nooroo?” Gabriel frowned at the trembling kwami. “No one has ever refused an akumatisation before. That girl was teeming with repressed rage.”

“I… I don’t know,” the purple creature whispered, seeming a bit shocked himself. “I told you, akumatisation isn’t a natural process, there’s a lot that is still unknown—”

Gabriel snarled, and Nooroo cowered into silence.

“It’s no matter, she may have escaped for now, but as long as that Lila girl is around, I’m certain Mlle Marinette will be angered enough to fall victim again.”

The window creaked open, and a white butterfly floated back in. Gabriel smiled at it.

“Next time….”

 

She’d pressed too hard into the skin, Marinette noted, as she hunched over her bedroom sink. Behind her, her phone rang again with Alya’s ringtone. Tikki didn’t pay it any mind, continuing to ramble in her small, worried voice.

“We have to tell Fu what happened!” she repeated again. “We have to go now!”

“Then you tell him,” Marinette said, as she pulled down a box of makeup wipes. “It’s not like my parents are gonna let me out so soon, now.”

“Marinette! This is the most important development we’ve ever gotten!” If Tikki’s voice pitched any higher, she might break something in Marinette’s ears. “You know it has to be you! I can’t tell him myself!”

She rubbed the fabric over the inside of her wrist, and the inked letters blurred. They melted away, but angry red lines of irritated skin left a ghost of what had been written there.

“Marinette, are you listening to me?”

She tossed the wipes into the trash, and returned the box to its shelf. Tikki floated around her, indignant, as Marinette discarded her jacket for a long sleeved one.

“I have to do something first,” she said, sitting down at her computer. “I can’t go, not yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

Tikki met unnaturally blue eyes, and the magic took hold.

“Okay.”

 

He always woke up in darkness, with magical lights. Sometimes, there were artificial ones, but those were very rare times. His master was not one for direct sunlight, and as a kwami of an un-chosen wielder, he had no right to it either.

The floor hummed, and he came to. A late night akumatisation? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

But his eyes met the wrong shade of blue, and the wrong sort of smile.

“Hello there,” the human who wasn’t his master nor his master’s aide crouched to his level. The liaisons were all scrambling over her form in adoration. “You must Nooroo, the Butterfly kwami.”

“You…” he whispered, horror and relief pouring through him, “you can’t be…”

The Champion of Growth smiled warmly, honestly, earnestly. Through her, he could feel Tikki’s joy.

He would see the daylight again.

 

Fu’s eyes were fixed on the open hexagonal box. Nestled in the satin fabric, a pair of red earrings with black spots gleamed. He didn’t look at the girl standing before him, a butterfly on one shoulder, a kwami on the other.

“How… did you do this?”

“The Lucky Charm doesn’t always help me in a fight. Sometimes it just leads me in the right direction. It turns out the Ladybug has a lot more influence over the Butterfly than just stopping an akumatisation. He didn’t even know what power I gave myself.”

“Marinette…”

The superhuman smiled serenely.

“You once told me the Miraculous were stronger in the hands of children. I think you’re right.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said, looking up into freezing blue eyes. “What will you do with Nooroo?”

“I have my own plans,” she answered, meeting the aforementioned kwami’s eyes.

“I will help her,” Nooroo said softly, lifting off of her shoulder. Purple eyes glowed. “Because I _choose_ to help her.”

“The Miraculous are to be used for the greater good,” she recited. “Even akumatisation can be used for good.”

“Are you so sure you will be doing good, Marinette?” Fu’s eyes darkened. “I apologise, but if you leave with the Butterfly, I fear you will make yourself the enemy of all your allies.”

The girl laughed. “Try and stop me, then. Go and find a Ladybug who can defeat me. Let’s see how strong the Heroes of Paris are without Ladybug doing all the work for them.”

She turned on her heel and made for the door.

“Marinette… how did this happen to you?”

Her hand halted on the door knob. She paused and breathed.

“Because I was too kind.”

 

Alya groaned at the alarm on her phone and turned it off. Sleepily, she unplugged the device with her eyes closed and rolled over to the other side of the bed, tucking her blanket over her shoulders. She forced her eyes open, and stared at the screen.

Marinette had finally replied to her late into the morning. Apparently she’d fallen asleep early after her short akumatisation and slept the day away. Alya scrolled through the rest of her notifications, before stopping at the email alert of a video submission to the Ladyblog.

She yawned, opening the file, and it took a few moments for her to register the face on her screen wasn’t a cosplayer.

“Hey Alya, I… Well, I really don’t make it a habit of interacting a lot with your blog because, you know, I’m not a celebrity. I keep saying that but no one seems to really listen… Anyway, about today’s attack with that shapeshifting akuma…”

The video rolled on, and Alya sat up.

 

Bustier’s class had twenty-six students with Lila’s return, and Nino really only knew half of them. Of that half, all of them except Adrien and Marinette had gotten akumatised. As of yesterday, that statistic had shifted ever so slightly.

It was an unspoken rule not to talk about what an akumatised victim did while akumatised. After all, it wasn’t their fault. Sometimes that rule was broken, usually with regards to Chloe, but they were otherwise expected to show support to a usually traumatised peer.

Marinette didn’t look nervous at all when she stepped into class. In fact, she kind of looked happy. She walked right to the back of the classroom, put down her things, then walked back to the front and stopped by Lila and Adrien’s desk, as if completely unaware of that half the assembled students present were staring at her.

“Hey, Lila,” she said cheerfully, interrupting one of Lila’s anecdotes. “You know how you’re always giving favours to everyone in the class?”

Lila leaned back into her seat, and Nino couldn’t see her face.

“Yeah, do you need something, Marinette?” Lila’s tone was a little too sweet.

“Oh, no, not me,” Marinette beamed, and something seemed off with her smile. “It’s that you’re always promising other people things, and you’ve only just gotten back to Paris! You’re such a sweet person, Lila, so as class representative, I wanted to gift you something in return.”

She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled something. If the class wasn’t paying attention beforehand, they definitely were now.

Nino wondered if he should be taking notes for Alya.

“Sorry, I didn’t wake you, did I?” Marinette asked the person on the other end. The person replied, and Marinette grinned, “Great! Hang on, lemme put you on speaker.”

Oh no. Nino knew that smile now. He’d seen it before, except usually it was directed to Chloe, or a teacher.

Marinette turned up the volume so everyone could hear a voice say, “Fang, get back! Fang says ‘hi’, Marinette.”

“Aww, he’s the sweetest,” Marinette cooed at the phone. “Tell him ‘hi’ back, Jagged.”

Lila stood to her feet, grabbing her bag. “I’m sorry, Marinette, I think I need to run to my locker—”

“Nope, sit down, Lila, this won’t take a moment!” Marinette’s smile looked welcoming, but anyone who’d spent any time with her as class president knew what it meant. “So Jagged, you have a concert next Friday and I was wondering if you could grab backstage passes for me and a Lila Rossi?”

“Oh, of course I’d be happy to give you and your new friend backstage passes! Any friend of Marinette’s is a friend of mine. So how’d you meet this Lila girl?”

Lila stood up and reached for Marinette’s phone, but the girl stepped away and answered.

“No, no, Lila Rossi, don’t you know her? You wrote a song about her and she saved your cat. She told me herself she got tinnitus saving your old cat on a jet runway.”

“Come on, Marinette, you know I have a crocodile!”

Lila left her seat and seemed about to lunge for Marinette or her phone, when Alya stormed into the classroom.

“Lila! I need to talk to you right now.”

Lila stared at her, halfway to Marinette and very much alarmed. Nino’s eyebrows rose. He’d never seen Alya so furious before.

“I just got a message from Ladybug herself saying you _lied_ to me! To everyone! Your interview was a total sham!”

“Really?” Marinette’s voice rose a pitch in apparent surprise, but the smile on her face told Nino it was deliberate. She held her phone to her face. “Sorry, Jagged, I gotta go. You can keep the passes.”

Alya shoved her own phone at Lila, playing back some sort of video. Over the din of the classroom, Nino could barely make out Ladybug’s voice.

“What else have you lied to us about?” Alya demanded, as Lila shrunk back into herself. “That sprained wrist? Knowing Prince Ali— Jesus, do you even _have_ a hearing issue?!”

“I… I…” Lila looked to be on the brink of tears.

“Marinette, that’s enough!”

The class fell quiet, and all heads swivelled to Adrien, who stood to his feet.

Marinette calmly pocketed her phone, meeting Adrien’s gaze with an ever brilliant smile.

“What do you mean?” she prompted.

“You’re just being cruel, now,” Adrien said, crossing his arms.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Marinette said. “I wanted us to go see Jagged Stone together. I didn’t know she was lying at all—I’m just as surprised as you are.”

Adrien hesitated to answer, and that hesitation said everything.

“You knew?!” Nino stood, rounding to face Adrien. “You knew about this?”

“Look, I—” Adrien’s jaw clenched. “Lila just wanted to make friends and thought pretending to be someone—”

“I don’t care what _she_ wanted,” Nino said, his own voice rising in pitch. “You didn’t tell me?”

Adrien began to stammer. “Humiliating her like this isn’t going to make her any better—”

The class descended into chaos.

“This isn’t about her!” Alya yelled, pulling Nino aside. “You knew all this time and you never told _anyone_?!”

“I… I didn’t think it was that big of a deal—”

“Yeah, you obviously didn’t _think_!”

“Hey! Back off on him, Lila’s the one who lied in the first place!”

“Chloe, aren’t you upset Adrien didn’t tell you either?”

It took a few more minutes of heated arguing, before Mendeleiv stepped into Bustier’s classroom and took control. When she attempted to ask what had prompted the all the anger, the students dissolved into more discord. It took the combined efforts of both Bustier and Mendeleiv to calm things down enough for Nino to explain.

Bustier looked around the classroom.

“And where are Marinette and Lila now?”

The bell rang.

“Late for class, wherever they are,” Mendeleiv said tersely, before returning to her own classroom.

 

In the girls’ washroom, Lila cried in one of the stalls. How could things have gotten so out of control? She thought that Marinette girl would be too weak to fight back, with how easily her friends abandoned her. Instead she’d humiliated her in front of everyone. She was just like Ladybug, thinking herself so important because she had power and connections. Well, she’d make her pay.

Green eyes opened. Between the cracks of the stall door, a black butterfly scuttled through.

Perfect timing.

Lila reached out and grabbed it, slipping it into her bracelet.

“It’s nice to see you again, Hawk Moth, I don’t think we need to re-introduce ourselves,” Lila smirked. “I want revenge on Ladybug and Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and in return, I’ll get you the Miraculous.”

The presence in her head gave a soft, girlish laugh that sent chills down Lila’s spine. Her smile faltered. This wasn’t right.

“It’ll be my pleasure to work with you, Lila. But, please—call me Eris.”

**Author's Note:**

> Eris, in case you weren't aware, is the Greek goddess of Discord and Strife. (Discordia is her Roman name) As the Butterfly wielder, Marinette's akumatisations target people she sees as worthy of punishment, and she is more into causing general chaos and disaster rather than going after the Miraculous or hurting innocents. She is a very vengeful, jaded, and merciless superhuman guided by a twisted sense of justice. 
> 
> Whether she is still an anti-hero or villain is... entirely up to your interpretation ^^ I just wanted her to unabashedly snap.
> 
> [Anyway here's what she looks like](https://emblian.tumblr.com/post/185414608066/).
> 
> After Marinette is akumatised, she supersedes him as the Ladybug and gives herself the power of mind reading without him even knowing. She then writes his real name on her arm with the pen since purifying the akuma would erase her memory of being akumatised.


End file.
